Winter's Song
by AngeloftheMorning1978
Summary: London shortly after Hitler's demise. Two young women host an impromptu dinner and recall the savages of war while hoping for a brighter future.
1. Chapter 1

**Winter's Song**

**~ London, 1946 ~**

~ Anna tried to balance two canvas shopping bags, a small wooden crate, and carry the post up the flight of stairs.

She had been to the market that snowy morning to discover the grocer had fresh eggs. It was like Christmas had come again when she saw all those brown eggs, fresh from the country.

'_I can fry them, boil them, even make fresh pasta_.' she thought to herself as she hoisted her loot in arms not strong enough to carry such a load.

The market had freshly killed and plucked chickens to. No more rabbits or wild game. She also got good smelling soap, fresh winter vegetables, and best of all, a bottle of wine to have with dinner. All the shortages were so painful, Anna wondered if they really won the war at all. It was a sad day when the idea of eggs, fresh meat, soap and second rate wine could make her week.

Still, she had been subsisting during the war on lukewarm oatmeal, day old bread, watery soup, and canned ham. The crate with her groceries, almost a weeks pay, seemed like a feast.

She was quick to let herself into the flat. Her neighbors not home yet from work and she had a mind to close herself off for the rest of the day. It was only noon, she could read her book, eat her meal at five, take a long hot bath with her new soap and change into her warmest pajamas. Yes, that was the only way to spend a cold day like this.

The snow had come last week, and wouldn't cease. It was as bad as the German bombings the way it rained down on them. The cold finding every available nook and cranny to invade and chase out the warmth.

Anna had been bombed out of her own flat during the blitz. She had failed to wake up at the sounds of the sirens, she had always been a heavy sleeper, and a bomb crashed through the building. It had struck, fell right through her bedroom and down to the floors below. Thankfully, Anna had slept right though the whole thing. Even when the bomb went off and her bed fell though decimated floor.

She vaguely remembered the sensation of falling. Of her body slipping off the bed and landing hard in someone rubble. The ARP warden was shocked to find the petite girl who worked as a typist for the war office, buried under her mattress. The whole thing must have sent her into some kind of shock because she had fallen asleep again.

She might not have been found for ages if not for one of the neighbors liking her posh gramophone and, attempting to salvage it from the ruins, discover a small, filthy hand. She was pulled free from the wreckage, her neighbors, as was the custom, salvaging as much of her possessions as they could. An older man even fixing her bed while she recovered.

With no place to go, a flat was found for her in a busy, but not so bombed part of London. Her new flat mate, Eliza, had already taken the only bedroom, and Anna had to cram her full size bed into a corner, pull a cheaply made privacy screen by it and generously called the area her bedroom.

Her bedroom was also called the sitting room, dinning room, library and viewing room. The viewing room got the name because of the wonderful view of their neighbors and the street in general. Whenever the girls were hard up for entertainment, there was always some kind of drama to be had out their window.

The flat was cozy enough with their own kitchen and bathroom. It was cramp though, and not meant for their living conditions. Anna's bed, her once stylish reading chair, the mismatched dinning table and chairs, the wallpaper that hadn't been nice even when it was new, all of it clashed with the girls opposite tastes in decor and art.

Eliza was a great fan of Hollywood stars and hung her collection of autographed pictures on the wall. Anna always found it a little unnerving to undress in front of Clark Gable. The man had a way of looking at her even from his lifeless picture.

But she couldn't complain about how she lived. There were plenty of people with no place to live at all. Eliza was clean enough and gone most of the time. She stayed in her bedroom when she was home. This left Anna to enjoy her time alone, which was exactly how she liked it.

The chicken immediately went into the ice box, but the eggs remained on the counter. She unpacked her standard rations of bread, canned fruit and other essentials before feeling a little too warm.

'_I'm wearing five layers._' she thought to herself.

She quickly peeled off her outer coat, the hand knitted scarf, the wool stockings that were ugly, but warm, the sweater, and finally she was down to the manageable skirt and blouse. She tipped all her layers onto her unmade bed as usual. She never had the heart to keep a tidy house these days.

The wind howled angrily at the windows and she shivered slightly. Once she lit the fire, their flat would be warm and well protected against the invasion of cold. Yet, seeing the snow pile up outside, made her want to crawl into bed again.

Anna turned on the wireless. She wanted noise. Music to drown out the sounds of the wind. A smooth, gentle voice, as kind as any lover, came on the magic airwaves. A man crooning about snow fall. His deep voice already relaxing her as she ran a hot bath.

~ Perhaps _hot bath_ wasn't the right word. There hadn't been really hot water in the pipes for years now. Another casualty of the bombings and the ARP restricting everything. But the gas worked well enough, and Anna heated water, pouring it into the tub till she had enough.

She quickly stripped in front of the gas heater in the bathroom and away from Clark Gable's eyes, the rascal dog. She tried to ignore the hot, bitting water that attacked her cold skin, but her feet were still half frozen from walking all over the neighborhood.

It was nice to have a bath again. The rationing of water had let up and people weren't so limited with its usage. She could now have three baths a week with no tide mark on the tub.

~ Eliza came home just as the hot water was starting to cool, and Anna had almost fallen asleep in the tub for the second time. Her flatmate always did make more noise than necessary, but something was off about the way her feet hit the wood floors.

"It's alright, Charles." Eliza was saying hurriedly as muffled voices reached her through the bathroom door. "It's just my flatmate and she won't mind."  
"It's just for tonight." said a sobering male voice from the hall.

Anna let out a groan and was glad she still had the habit of locking the bathroom door behind her. Eliza brought a man home again. Not a week went by that she wasn't madly in love with some new GI. She would stay over at his place, or he would come over for the night and be entrained in Eliza's room.

Anna always scurried to the theater to see the latest picture and then out for coffee or to the library. Her war had been a lonely affair with no GI to keep her bed warm. The bombing and war work kept her too distracted for anything but her most immediate needs. None of which involved a strange man in her home while she was in the tub.

She pulled herself out of the water and dried off. She wished she had thought to bring a change of clothes, that she didn't have to go out in her bathrobe, but who would have thought Eliza would be home so early?

Anna secured her faded blue robe, worn, but still serviceable and steeled herself to meet Eliza's new love interest.

~ There wasn't one, but two men sitting at the dinning room table. Eliza was apparently getting more open minded after the war. Both men, beguiling in uniform, stood up when she quietly appeared in the room.  
"I wasn't sure you'd be home, Annie!" Eliza laughed. Her flatmate coming out of the kitchen with Anna's prized bottle of wine. "This is Lieutenant Charles Howard and Captain Darling. I met them on the way home from work. They need a place to stay for the storm.

Anna, distracted for a moment by the strangers in the very room she slept in, grabbed her wine bottle away from Eliza.

"They can stay with the rest of the army." she hissed.

"No, they can't. Someone reassigned something, it was all very complicated. I don't know." Eliza sighed and then beamed at the men in her company.

"I'm sorry. We should go." one of the men, an American, by the look of his uniform, said.

"You most certainly will not!" Eliza said quickly. She snatched back the bottle of wine from Anna and ran a hand through her course red hair.

"No, there's a storm coming. I won't have you heroes of the war caught in it!" she looked at Anna. A pleased little smile on her face.

"We can have dinner and then worry about the sleeping arrangements." she said.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

~ "His name is Charles Howard. A lieutenant and some kind of hero, although I didn't get the whole story. He wouldn't come without that dreadfully sour American friend of his. William, I think the name was. I don't know I didn't pay much attention." Eliza was whispering quietly in the bathroom as Anna redressed. It was a let down to have to change back into normal clothes now. She longed to lounge about the apartment in her night clothes. Her reading chair, faithful as ever by the viewing window, a thick volume of romantic stories on her lap. She would have been cozy and warm, but Eliza dashed all her hopes of a relaxing day.

"It's just for tonight." Eliza insisted.

"Where will they even sleep?" Anna hisses as she pulled on a clean pair of wool stocking.

"I was hoping the lieutenant would sleep with me." Eliza whispered happily.

"Well, where will the other one sleep? Or, will you take both of them to bed?" Anna said hotly.

"He can sleep in the sitting room." Eliza offered.  
"Where _I_ sleep? No."

"No, of course not. He can sleep on the floor."

"You'll make him sleep on the floor?"

"Unless you want to share your bed?"

Anna opened her mouth to say something particularly nasty when there was a knock on the door of the little bathroom.  
"Yes?" Anna barked.  
"Don't mean to be a bother, ladies, but could I have a wash? Only, it's been a few days." came the voice of Lieutenant Howard.

"Oh, of course, dearest!" Eliza giggled and threw open the door just as Anna finished buttoning up her cardigan.

Eliza rushed to her Lieutenant and pulled him into the bathroom as Anna side stepped out.  
"You two just make yourselves at home." Eliza cooed. "Have a bath and shave, oh good, Annie you bought new soap."

Anna rolled her eyes and tried not to let her sour disposition show.

"I'll get started on dinner. Annie, you did go to the market today, right?" Eliza said as she shut Mr. Howard in the bathroom.

"Yes." Anna sighed and remembered her chicken and the payload of eggs. These men would surely want to plunder the good food she had bought.

"Eliza?" Anna hissed and waved at her flatmate. "You didn't say anything about feeding them."

"Well of course, it's a party. It's been ages since we've had guests." Eliza whispered. "The war is over, it's high time we started acting like it."

Anna watched her flatmate almost skip across the room to the kitchen.  
"Oh, Annie! Eggs! What a clever thing you are!" she shouted gleefully.

Anna caught sight of the American officer looking out their large window. A window that took up almost half the wall, and worth the loss of usable space.

"Very nice view." he said noticing her looking at him.

"It is." Anna said cooly.

The American looked towards the tiny, galley style kitchen where Eliza was now making a lot of racket. It was normally Anna who did the cooking and the cleaning. Eliza ate the food and made the messes. A mess she had grown used to, but now saw her flat as the American would see it. Full of clutter, post left to collect on the table, novels stacked carelessly around the room. Eliza's film crushes tacked to the horrid wallpaper. Anna's salvaged pictures of her family placed on the mantle in cracked frames. Haunted ghost looking over her.

She spotted the shoes she had carelessly kicked off and went to stow them in the closet. The over packed hall closet seemed to protest by unleashing the broom, hitting Anna on the head.

"I know this isn't what you were expecting." the American was saying over the sound of pans clattering in the kitchen, and brooms falling in the hallway.  
"Not your fault, I just don't see where there will be room." Anna said pulling her hair back and stuffing the hall closet beyond capacity.

She suddenly wished she had make up again. During the war, the shortages were such that things like lipstick, face powder or rouge couldn't be found. She had gotten used to it and stopped caring about her looks as much. There was a war on and makeup hardly mattered when you were being bombed. Eliza, on the other hand, wouldn't let the Nazis take away her right to bright red lipstick, long spider like eye lashes and candy pink cheeks.

She was curled, colored and coifed to perfection, even during the air raids. Now, Anna looked especially plain.

"I'm used to sleeping rough." the American said. "I'll be fine. I just can't stand the snow and Howard and I are still waiting for our pay so we can go home."

"Oh." Anna said feeling a little embarrassed for not wanting to open her home to these men. "So, you were left behind?" she asked.

"In a way." the American laughed. His face lighting up briefly before returning to a bitter scowl."I was told to go home, but wasn't given any means to do so. No money, no connections. I was hoping to get on a standard troop transport that leaves in a week."

"I'm sorry to hear that, um, I'm sorry, I didn't get your name." Anna said stupidly.  
"You can call me William." he said and extended his hand just like she were a man. Anna was a little surprised at this. Perhaps the war had made hand shaking acceptable for women, or perhaps it was normal where he came from.

She let him take her hand, felt how strong and callused it was, and let go.  
"I'm Anna." she muttered and left her American to check on Eliza.

~ "I can't believe you found a chicken. Arn't you a doll!" her flatmate said happily as Anna buttered and salted the little hen. The American, William, had loosened some of the hardness around her heart since their arrival.

There were stories like his all over since the war ended. Men were dropped off at the nearest allied port and told to find their own way home. Most of them fresh from the battle fields and without even telling their families back home they were alive. It created a nightmarish flood of soldiers needing lodging, food and most of all transport.

Forgotten men, no parade for them at times square.

It wasn't just the men who were left behind. All over war torn Europe were relics. Jeeps, tanks and even weapons were cast aside. Too much trouble to bring them back home. They were like toys a child had grown tired of playing with.

Anna glanced at her American. He looked like the war had been unkind to him. He was too thin, his face too hardened and too ready to pull into deep lines of worry and doubt. She had seen that face so often now. Men looking older beyond their years. Their eyes haunted and troubled.

"Can't tell you what a pleasure it is to have a shower and shave!" came a happy voice from the hall way. Lieutenant Howard, in fresh clothes and looking startling handsome had finally come out of the bathroom. "The tap is a little cool, ladies."

"Well, it will be a while till dinner." Eliza cooed back at him as Anna watched her flatmate try to cook. Eliza made tea and toast for herself when Anna wasn't home. She wasn't especially gifted at the little gas range.

She wanted to mock her flatmates attempt to charm her officer by making him think she was a wizard in the kitchen. What man didn't love a woman who could cook? It was a foolish desire on Eliza's part to think she could weave a spell of love on the good looking Lieutenant. Surely he had a girl waiting at home for him.

But Anna said nothing. Only set to work at striating the kitchen and clearing off the table.

William, looked uncomfortable in the now silent flat. He was still at the window, snow now falling heavily outside, his bag still in his hands.

"Do you mind if I start a fire?" he asked nodding at the small gas powered fireplace.

"Please do." Anna said softly. She was clearing away old tea things, the post, her sewing box and a discarded hair brush of hers off the dinning table.

The girls had clearly becomes too accustomed to each other for random company. More than once they were prone to leaving their under garments to dry in front of the fire, or lounge about the flat all day in bed clothes.

These days, Anna didn't even make her bed or bother to hang up her coat. It just served as another blanket during the winter.

She quickly went to tidy up her space as her American knelt before the gas fireplace and carefully lit the pilot with a silver lighter.

"You have to be careful with gas now. All the bombings made the network unstable." he was saying as Howard sat at the table and started re-lacing his shoes while Eliza was busy pretending to be a great cook.

"Yes." Anna said a little breathlessly as she hoped he wouldn't notice her unmade bed, or her stockings draped over the curtain rod.

"They kept shutting off the gas during the blitz. Cold baths, cold tea, cold dinner for weeks on end." she sighed. "If the bombs didn't end us the lack of a good meal would have."

She sensed William smile a little even though her back was to him.

"You girls made it alright." Howard offered.

Anna, her face already hot from scurrying around the flat trying to hide the fact that they lived there, looked at him in surprise.

"Only by luck." Eliza chimed in. "Ari was bombed out of the rustic flat not far from here. She was found in the basement, the only survivor. It was dreadful. They had no place to put her and she landed with me."

Anna felt her face flush with shame. Her private life opened like an old infected wound.

She glanced at William who's eyes were trained on her.

"I… I have my gramophone." she said brightly. "I salvaged my record collection."

"Sounds grand." Howard said from his spot at the table. His shoes still undergoing shinning.

"If you don't mind." William said once the American was sure the gas line was sound and a fire was warming the room. "I'd like to have a bath."

"Sure." Anna said.  
He nodded, grabbed his large, worn out pack, and went to the bathroom.

"He's a rather dull fellow." Eliza said from the kitchen as soon at the bathroom door shut. "How do you know him?"

"William?" Howard asked. "The Captain and I go way back. Always practical, always walks the line. What kept me alive at times. He is a bit of a stick in the mud though."

Eliza gave out a fake giggle that fooled no one.  
"Oh, Charles, you're so funny." she said.

While her American was washing up, Anna cleaned as best she could. Despite being bombed out of house and home, she still had a great deal of things that didn't fit in the tiny flat. Her reading chair, her clothes, her gramophone, her books and even her old lamp. All of them were banged up, burned and battered, but they were hers. They were all she had left in the world. She had been especially happy when the gramophone had been pulled out of the wreckage. It had been a birthday gift from her father a few years ago. It played records and the wireless radio. It had been her constant companion during the war years. The great comforting voice of the BBC telling her the news of the war, the news of the world.

She was thankful it still worked, although there was little space for the thing in the flat she had to share. But even Eliza had to agree it played music beautifully.

Anna carefully pulled out the record collection her father left behind. The man was an opera fan and adored the Italians the most. Their music was so sad and seemed to stay in the mind forever. It coasted into her dreams and filled her with a romantic rush while doing the most mundane things.

"Very nice." Howard said as the stirring piano music glided though the air. The notes sounded lonely. As though they were lost in a storm. The accompanying harmony responded, like a mother calling her child home. But all were lost in war. Everything was lost.

"Oh that's much too melodramatic." Eliza sighed. "But on some Billie Holiday will you? We could use a festive mode."

Anna ignored her as the snow fell outside.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

~ William emerged later smelling of soap. His hair was smoothed back and his face cleanly shaven. His face still looked too rough and sharp in the dim lights of the flat.

"Dinner's almost ready." Eliza said happily as Anna set the table.

She noticed how terribly thin her American was. His pants had to be held up by thick suspenders, and were too lose around his hips. He looked as though he hadn't eaten properly in a long time and Anna felt ashamed for her comment about eating cold meals because the gas was off. How these young men must have gone without in the war. It was silly and selfish to complain about no hot water.

"Smells nice." was all her American said.

"I found a chicken at market today." Anna said. She had taken his time in the bath to clean a bit more. Howard, ever male, sat at the table, cleaned his shoes and made no comment or offered to help.

William's face lightened and he gave her what might have been a smile.

"Eggs to." Anna offered.

"Well, let us contribute." William said and gave Howard a slap on the shoulder. "The oranges."

"What? Oh yeah." Howard said and finally stood to retrieve his ruck sack.

Eliza peered out of the kitchen curiously as their guest pulled free a flour sack and handed it to Anna.

She could smell the citrus scent through the cloth.

"How?" she croaked as she removed four perfect oranges from the sack.

"I have my ways." William said.

"Has his ways." Howard mimicked with a low chuckle. "There was a monastery in France with roof damage. We helped repair it and they let us stay in the barn and gave us those oranges as payment. You can keep the lot of them, ladies. We've been living off them for a week now and I'm sick of them. Wouldn't mind fried eggs though."

Eliza grinned at her soldier and went back to cooking. Anna's hen smelling wonderful in the oven.

"Well, this is a treat." she whispered. "Fresh fruit."

"I thought it might be." William agreed. "I wish we had more to pay you back."

"This is plenty." Anna said. The bright color of the orange looked so inviting as she placed them in the large decorative bowl on the book case. They seemed to bring life to the entire war weary flat.

"I wish we had onions." Eliza sighed. "Or garlic even."

Anna wanted to say something about Eliza's sudden love of cooking, but caught William looking at her and felt her cheeks heat up.

"I think we have some garlic powder in the cupboard." she said. A perfect time to excuse herself to the little kitchen.

"Hope you won't get into trouble, but I removed the regulator off the tap." William called out.

"The what?" Anna asked as she took out flatware.

"The hot water regulator?" he said. His brows lifted. She looked at him as if he spoke another language.

"Before the bombings the government made you ration your hot water usage." William explained. "They put these devices on the taps to limit how much hot water you could use. I took it off for my bath."

"Oh!" Anna exclaimed.

"I can put it back on if you like." he said quickly.  
"Don't you dare!" Eliza snapped. "Oh Annie! Hot baths again! Think of it!"

"I notice you didn't do it before my bath." Howard said.

"Sorry, Howard, I hardly worry about the comfort of your baths." William said quickly.

Anna sensed the two men were used to such arguments. They seemed more like brothers just now, sitting at the little table. Howard finishing his shoes. William pulling on some heavy woolen socks.

"We had an innkeeper's wife do our wash the other day." William explained. "You have no idea how good it feels to wear clean clothes again."

Anna felt that same odd sense of shame as she helped Eliza prepare the bird.

~ The four of them finally ate a meal of chicken, roasted potatoes and carrots and even some of the wine Anna had bought.

The women feasting on the oranges as the men talked about their wanderings.

"We were in Germany when we heard the war ended." Howard explained. "I expected Hitler's strong hold to be blown apart like London was. Berlin was a disaster but Germany was beautiful. It had mountains and clear lakes everywhere. If there wasn't a war on, I'd have taken a holiday there."

Eliza seemed to think this was funny.

"Oh Charles, you can't be serious. Holiday with the Germans?" she laughed.

"What about you, Captain?" Anna asked. Her American had been mostly silent for their meal and she felt she should say something to cut the tension.

"Oh. I found Germany alright. The Russians were coming in strong by then, so we didn't see much." he explained.

"How long have you been away from home?" she asked.  
"Three years." he said in a robotic voice.  
Anna was a little stunned.

"Such a long time." she said sadly. "Your family?"

"Last I heard, they were well." he said coldly and looked away.

The questioning called to an abrupt halt by the uncomfortable silence.  
"Annie, will you please put on something a little more lively? I can't stand this music." Eliza said.

The four of them had been dinning to the sounds of violins. It was easy to pretend they were in a fancy restaurant this way. A fire in the hearth, good looking soldiers at their table, a good meal spread out on a clean, white table cloth.

Anna rolled her eyes and excused herself to change records. The gramophone would always be her most prized possession and she was the only one allowed to ever use it.

She had only three records from the jazz age and one from Billie Holiday. She liked the rambunctious music the lady sang, but it didn't suit the mood of war. It seemed so unpatriotic to have happy music when there was such suffering.

When horns and base rhythm picked up, Billie's unique voice taking stage, Eliza jumped from her chair.  
"That's more like it. Dance with me, Mr. Howard!" she ordered.

Her soldier seemed ready to comply and allowed the vivacious red head girl to pull him into the sitting room. There was little space for dancing. Anna's bed, her reading chair and other furniture didn't give the couple much room. Still, like all Londoners, Eliza made do.

She pressed her body so close to her soldier's that they didn't seem to need more space on their dance floor.

"So, you were bombed?" William asked and Anna, her attention having been focused on the couple, was taken by surprise.

She looked at him with shock, as if he had asked her something dirty.

"I don't mean to pry." he said.

"No, no, it's alright." she whispered. Billie was singing and Eliza was giggling. The blitz seemed very far away now.

"We were all bombed, weren't we? I…" Anna started and decided to keep the story simple. "I was in bed asleep. Didn't hear the siren go off. Didn't go to the basement. The bomb fell on our building and didn't go off right away. I really don't remember it. The blast I mean. All the people in my building were killed. They were in the basement."

Anna remembered waking up in that basement. She always said she didn't remember. But the smell of the building falling apart; the burning, the smoke. The stench of raw sewage and gas. She had opened her eyes to find the whole world had gone mad. Her neighbors dressing gown hanging on a coat rack next to another bed. Only her bed was now in the basement, she was buried alive and there were people moaning and crying for help.

For hours and hours it went on, till Anna, too exhausted from the shock and fear of what happened. Passed out.

"I woke up in the hospital. In the hallway of the hospital, they didn't have room enough. I had to stay in a shelter till a place could be located. I moved in with Eliza here." she nodded at the couple.

"Must have been terrifying." William commented.

"Well, we didn't have the enemy shooting at us like you did." Anna told him.

"Yes, but we could go home. You lost your home." he said. "Was your family lost during the bombing?" he asked.

She shook her head and refused to look at him.  
"I'm sorry. The war is over, lets talk of more pleasant things." he said apologetically. "What will you do now?"

"Now?" she said in surprise. To be honest, she hadn't given thought to what she might do after the war. The worries of day to day survival had always left her exhausted. Too tired to even worry about tomorrow, let alone next year or the year after that.  
"I don't know." she admitted sadly. "What will you do?"

"Aside from going home?" a ghost of a smile lifted his lips. "Live as boring a life as possible. Tend a garden, raise some horses maybe. Die a very old man in my sleep."

"With lots of grandchildren around you I expect." Anna said with a laugh.

She meant it as a compliment, but his face turned suddenly sad.

"I'm sorry, if I…" she apologized.

"No. It's fine." he said and looked as his rough, hands longingly. "My wife wrote to me about a year ago. She wanted a divorce. She had meet a doctor and wanted to marry him. I signed the papers before going into Berlin."

He looked at his fingers, where a wedding ring should have been. As if still mourning the loss.

"She divorced you before you marched into Berlin?" Anna gasped in horror.

He nodded and managed to look happy.  
"I think it would have been neater for everyone if I had died there." he said with a self pitting laugh.

"Captain, you mustn't think that." she said sadly.

He was still looking at his hands when Eliza started to laugh.

"Well, if you're really that tired." she cooed at Howard who was snuggling in her hair.

William and Anna looked up from the little kitchen table to see the pair of them making a spectacle. Kissing and standing much to0 close as the music played on.

Her flatmate glanced back at the wallflowers.

"I think Howard and I will retire early tonight." she said happily.

Anna only nodded and watched her flatmate, her easy ways with men, take her latest prize to her private bedroom.

Eliza was still giggling as the door shut, leaving them alone. The silence spinning out like the flurries of snow through the window.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

~ "So you grew up in California? Why didn't you go to Japan?" Anna asked.  
"Because I spoke French very well and I wanted to stop the Nazis." he said.

"Why? I mean, it was Japan who attacked."

William gave her a little smile and shrugged. The afternoon light was fading away. It would be dark soon. They had eaten all they could, had two glasses of whine each and trie to ignore the sounds coming from Eliza's bedroom.

"The Second Great War? Who was I to say no?" he said at last. "Tell me about the bombings."

"Dreadful." she said. Her attention not willing to be detoured for a second from her American. He was evading the subject. He didn't want to talk about the war and she didn't want to talk about the blitz.

"Tell me about the war." she challenged.

"Dreadful." he said.

He leaned back in his chair, his thin body still muscular despite his obvious weight loss. She glared at him and he only glared back at her. It seemed a stalemate had been reached.  
"I hate to be rude." he said at last. "But I think I might need to sleep myself."

"Oh." Anna said with a start and stood to clear the dishes away.

"I've got my bed roll." he offered loudly over the clatter of her putting the four plates in the deep kitchen sink. She and Eliza were both lazy about doing the dishes.

"Right." she said taking the tea cups to the sink next.

"I'll sleep by the fire?" he asked.  
"Sure."

"Won't be in the way."

"No, of course not." she said distractedly.

~ Her American slept in his uniform. Even his boots were laced back up, his helmet next to his head, his pack serving as a pillow and his jacket for a blanket. His rifle, which she hadn't noticed before, lay next to his body. Hidden from the view of an enemy till it would have been too late.

Anna hadn't expected him to fall asleep so quickly. She had changed into her night clothes in the tiny bathroom, and by the time she re-emerged, her American was laid out in front of the fire, a olive green winter scarf wrapped over his eyes. A thing that mostly would have been done from habit than anything else. Take away the crowded, cluttered apartment, and her soldier would have looked like he was still sleeping rough in a war zone.

She was filled suddenly with intense pity for him. That perhaps like her, like all of them, he would never really escape that war. That all of them would be lost orphans in a world that had gone so insane for so long, that they wouldn't recognize how to come back.

They would be like sad little ghosts roaming about, dreamlike and never understanding what happened.

'_Don't be so morbid._' she scolded herself before tiptoeing to her little bed behind the cheaply made screen and throwing her once fashionable bedspread over her body.

It was effective enough to cut the chill, the fire still keeping the real cold away.

She watched the snow falling in the dark sky outside her nice window. The white snow seeming to glow brightly in the dark night. She didn't dare turn on a light. Memories of the black outs were still too vivid and she had learned to exist in darkness. Besides, it seemed better this way. To pass into sleep in a home full of slumbering bodies, a good fire dying a slow death. It had been a better evening than she had thought it would be. One of unexpected company, but still a pleasant evening.

She heard William snoring slightly and burrowed deeper under her cover. The ticking of her old clock, another artifact salvaged from the bombing of her life, lulled her to sleep, and she knew nothing more.

~ It wasn't yet dawn when dreams told her she had to wake up. A sudden, irresistible urge griped her body and made her muscles go tense. Her eyes opened to the dark flat and she knew why couldn't go back to sleep again.

William was sitting in her reading chair. His rifle leaning over his leg as his eyes were trained into the snowy darkness outside.

"Captain?" she whispered.

"I was just watching a cat on the street." he said softly. His face still turned away from her. Only the moonlight illuminated the room now.

"They never seemed bothered by the war, do they?" he asked.  
"Who?" she asked.

"Cats." he said. "It's just another day for them. The politics of man doesn't concern them."

"Captain." she said and tried to look for the clock to see how late it was.

"It was snowing when we found the first camp." he said to the darkness. "Snowing just like this. We took it without a fight from the Germans. All the bombings, all the showboating, and they just rolled over like dogs in the end."

She sat up in bed a little. Her bedding pulled up high to her chin. No one ever spoke about the camps. The papers giving only hints as to the horrors. Such talk was too terrible for ladies to hear and was better left unsaid.

"I looked at those human skeletons, those men and women with horror." he whispered. "They looked like monsters. I was afraid they would touch me. The way they looked, the way they smelled."

His last words came out in a hiss of self disgust.

"William?" she questioned when he was silent for a long time. She didn't want to hear about the camps anymore. Her curiosity had always been high since news broke, but she didn't want to think about them now. Hadn't they all suffered enough?

"Sometimes, I wonder when it's going to end. Will it ever end?" he asked.

"Someday." she whispered hopefully.

He kept looking out her window.

"When the bomb hit, I was knocked down into the basement. I could hear my neighbors dying around me, but I couldn't move." she said suddenly.

He finally turned back to her. His face looking as if it were carved out of stone.

She gave him a slight shrug.

"I've never told anyone that." she said guiltily. "I suppose someone should now."

William turned back to her window and watched the snow again.

"Captain, it's late. Go back to sleep." he told him.

"Can't." he said. "I have a hard time sleeping through the night."

"Try." she told him. "It's not our way to let Hitler get to us. Not in London."

She thought she saw him smile again. Heard the springs of her reading chair protest as he stood and walked back to his spot by the fire.

His boots, still laced up, made stomping noises as he walked.

"I'm sorry, Anna." he sighed as he made his nest in front of the still glowing ashes. "I won't bother you again."

She let out a long sigh.

"Surely you can't be comfortable on the floor." she said softly. Half hoping he wouldn't hear.

Her soldier turned slightly and looked back at his feet.

"Take your boots off. Put your rifle up." she nodded.

She held her breath while she moved to the far end of her bed. Her covers, including her winter coat folded down to invite him for sleep.

"Ma'am." was all he said.

"We're both tired." she interrupted harshly. "We're just going to sleep. You look like you need it."

She nodded at his boots and rifle. Soundlessly, William placed his weapon by her bed. Still ready to use at a moments notice. The springs of her mattress creaked when he sat down to take his boots off. The noise seemed to break the stillness in the air.

She couldn't help but watch him easily remove such worn out boots and place them noiselessly on the floor.

She had never shared a bed in her life, much less with a man. His body, though thin, took up too much room and she had to almost touch the wall to avoid touching him.

He seemed to have been holding his own breath, because when he laid back and covered their bodies, he let out a long breath.

"Thank you." he whispered.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

~ Anna woke shortly before sun rise. She had slept almost every night of her life in this bed and always alone. She awoke to realize she had forgotten her American was sleeping beside her.

She remained quite and still, listening to the deep breathing coming from him. He was still asleep, even though it was morning.

The snow had let up slightly in the cold breaking day. The sun would shin brightly, but there would be no warmth to it. The heavy snow fall had left behind a neighborhood half buried. The bombed out building had been left to rot until the city could get around to properly demolishing them. The old, abandoned apartments looked like doll houses. Their wallpaper faded from exposure to the elements. In some rooms, there was even pictures on the wall. A glimpse into the lives of their occupants. Anna could see the rubble of several buildings from her viewing room. They always seemed to sad. Like ruins of a lost civilization. It's survivors, looking at what once was and wondering why.

Her American was sleeping peacefully beside her in their warm, little bed. Anna had to debate how much she needed to get up and use the bathroom. He was like a sleeping cat, looking so comfortable, she hated to disturb him. Besides, the approaching sunlight would wake him for her. No matter how tired the girls were after air raids, or work, or both, they never slept past sun rise. Their lofty residence on the fifth floor, made the sun a frequent visitor though their windows.

When she realized her bladder couldn't wait forever, she had to gingerly maneuver off the bed with it's squeaky mattress. Why didn't the springs ever bother her before?

William seemed to be capable of sleeping through anything. His snores weren't especially loud, but she could tell by his deep, long breaths he wasn't pretending to sleep.

On silent feet, Anna tiptoed to the bathroom to wash up and dress.

The door to Eliza's room was shut tight and Anna was glad. She hoped her flatmate would spend the day with her solider and leave her alone. The fire, left burning low all night, didn't effectively chase away the coldness of morning. The sobering cold floors on warm feet were unwelcome as she shut the door to wash up. The chill in the air made it difficult to wash up. The steam from the hot water curled off her skin like smoke, and only served to chill her even more. But she couldn't complain with a sink that burst free with clean hot water.

What a luxury it was to have piping hot water again in the taps! What a wonderful, simple joy she had forgotten about. It made her feel almost human. As though she had been in some depraved county and was in culture shock to how deselect people lived.

~ Refreshed and renewed, Anna felt a second wind take over. Her American was still sleeping soundly as was the rest of the house. It was still too early for anyone to be awake just yet, and she couldn't go back to sleep.

~ How she found the nerve to go through William's pack she never could explain, but when William woke up around noon, it was to find his hostess mending his meager clothes at the table.

"You slept so long. I didn't want to wake you up." she explained by way of a greeting. Her batter and broken sewing box open with spartan threads, buttons and other odds and ends that would never find a home. So, these bits of salvaged scraps were put in the sewing box with the idea that they could one day be pressed into service again.

His shirts were almost thread bare and wouldn't survive another year. She patched up the holes as best she could, but she was afraid another washing would do his wardrobe in for good.

William looked even more exhausted than he did yesterday.

"I was dreaming." he said in a groggy voice. His manners indifferent to her taking liberties with her clothing.

"Oh?" she asked. "Of what?"

I think we were at a carnival, and there was an accident." he said from his spot in her bed.

"A bomb?"

"No, I don't think so." he said. "People were panicking."

"Well the days of bombings are over." she told him as she folded his ragged clothes up and took his socks from the screen in front of the fire. They were nice and warm now and William looked up at her gratefully.

"Thank you." he said in a small voice of surprise.

"Your clothes are a sorry sight." she sighed as the snow started to pick up again.

"I know." he agreed.  
"There's bread for toast in the tin." she told him stiffly and went to put her shoes on.  
"Where are you going?" he asked. The flat was quite even though Eliza and her soldier must be awake by now.

"I have to check on my neighbors." she told him distractedly. Shutting the front door behind her.

~ "Mr. Baker's slacks." the widow Baker said proudly holding up a few pair of out of fashion pants. "He looked just like a film star in his suit, you know."

Anna smiled at the older woman, still in love with a man who had so recently been buried. The couple had lived here in this building all their married life. Nothing could move them, not even the bombs.  
"I think it will suit my friend nicely." the younger woman said softly. Mrs. Baker seemed reluctant to hand over a dead man's clothes, but finally nodded and laid them on the bed.  
"I have some good socks and shirts the young men can have as well." she said. "God knows my Jonathan won't be coming home to use them."

Anna kept her lips tightly shut when Mrs. Baker spoke of her lost son. Jonathan was only nineteen when he left home. He had been missing and presumed dead since the evacuation at Dunkirk. The Bakers were a poor family. Even though both husband and wife worked, it was clear that they were never well off. All Mrs. Baker had now was her husband's pension, his life insurance, and a few personal things. Their son had been an only child and it seemed she was destined to live out her days in the small flat, with only her memories to keep her company.

"You take them for your friend." the older woman ordered stiffly. Not an ounce of real charity in her heart. "If that's what you want."

"Do you need me to go to the market for you?" Anna asked as she folded the offered clothing.

"What, do you think I am? feeble?" Mrs. Baker retorted bitterly. "I'm not a charity case just yet. I can take care of myself. I may have to rent out the other room, but I'll manage."

Anna didn't ask anymore from the poor widow. She felt, as she always did, that she had robbed the woman. Even if they were given to her and there would be no Mr. Baker, junior or senior, to come back for them.

~ "Where did you find those?" William asked from the dinning room table. He had helped himself to a light lunch of toasted bread and cheese she had planed to use later in the week. A pain of selfishness rippled through her at the though of her precious food stores being used. In the war, and even after, nothing was more important than food. It was always a scarce meal in the best of times. A small sandwich for lunch, a bowl of soup for dinner. There was always the annoying pain of hunger creeping though the body when such small rations were dolled out.  
"A neighbor." she explained. "Her husband had a lot of clothes and he was skinny, like you." she said feeling slightly happier now that she was back in her American's company.  
"Stand up." she instated and held a shirt out to see if it would fit.

William placed his slice of bread down and stood as instructed. Ann held the shirt over his chest.  
"I think it will do fine." she said happily. Even though the shirt was second hand, it was like new for the both of them. Anna had gone so long without anything new of her own. All her dresses and other clothing were torn, riddles with snags, and worn thin from too many washings.

"Let me guess, you ran one of those clothing swaps during the war. Going door to door asking for donations." he teased as he peeled off his and pulled on the late Mr. Baker's wardrobe.

"Hardly." Anna laughed. "I worked in the war office. Typing. When I wasn't doing that, I was working in a canteen."

She shook her head at the memory. Hours on her feet after work in an office. Her hands cracked and weathered from doing so many dishes with cheap useless soap. Her head and back aching just a few hours into her shift. Most nights she didn't get home till after midnight. Those were the good nights. When the air raids didn't make the whole operation of feeding the masses halt and run for cover. The good nights saw a full house of people. All of them wearing the same look on their faces of shock and weariness. As if they hadn't slept properly for days or even weeks. Which, in most cases, they hadn't

"We were bombed so much," Anna mused as she started pinning places on his shirt to hem. "They put sand bags all around the canteen to protect it from all the shrapnel. It was just a school canteen, nothing fancy, but they piled the bags around it so high, you had to climb down to get to it. It felt like a bunker."

William was quite as she worked to fit his shirt.

"We fed about four hundred people a day. I didn't work a whole shift, but the canteen was open all day and all night. Never closed, not even for Sunday. We managed to feed a lot of people who had lost their homes. ARP workers and… the people who dug out bodies." she whispered.

William turned slightly.  
"That's you done." she said quickly.

"Thank you, for getting me some better clothes." he said at last.

Anna only nodded and refused to look at him. She had no idea how to talk to men on a personal level anymore. In the war, things were actually easier. There was always instructions to give, orders to follow. Personal conversations weren't needed and thusly, weren't implemented. It was day to day fear of death, coupled with needs of life. It made for a strange perspective on relationships.

"So, what will you do?" he asked her as she helped him out of Mr. Baker's shirt.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Now that it's over." he clarified. "Now that the boys are coming home. There's no more bombings now."

She knew what he was asking. It was a question she had asked herself many times since Germany fell.  
"I haven't given it much thought." she said sadly. "Stay in London perhaps."

"Why don't you go abroad?" he asked.

She felt her face grow hot at the idea of leaving the country. So many people were flushed out of their homeland and into a frighting foreign land. She didn't have the courage to do such a thing. To start over new when everything she was, was here.

"Perhaps one day." she admitted.

She sensed some kind of judgment on William's part. As if he had expected her to recount some girlish dream of running off to hollywood and becoming a famous actress. He no doubt saw all of Eliza's movie stars on the wall and thought she to must exist in such a dream world.

"You'll really stay here?" he questioned.

"Why not?" she asked.

She was about to make an argument in the values of staying in London, but the destroyed buildings across the street, the brutal memories of how they got that way, seemed to make those reason laughable.

"It will get better." she told him. "I know the city is already rebuilding."

William said nothing.  
"My friend and your roommate are here." he said casually after a long spell of silence.

Anna tried not to sound too shocked.  
"Eliza must have convinced him to take her out." she told him.  
"Perhaps we could go out to. Do you have to work today?" he asked.

"No." she told him simply. She didn't want to admit she had plans to do a little as possible for her meager days off. It was so rare to have such solitude and quite to ones self these days.

"Perhaps a walk?" William asked kindly. "I'm certainly dressed for it."


End file.
